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My friend just got his Pathfinder Adventure Card Game set and I watched him go through a solo game. One point that came up quite a few times was Summoned Monsters. When returning them to the box, my friend shuffled them into the monster deck every time.

I pondered this: is "returning to the box" the same as Banish? Banish does say "put it back into the box, shuffling it with the other cards of the same type".

As is, I find it somewhat strange because it can lead to what happened to us: getting 3 Specters in a row, which was a horrible thing for a character with no magic, in a situation where the summoned monster needs to be defeated to close the location (Brigandoom, Farmhouse).

Actually, there is a subtle difference between "Banish" and "Put back in the box". Once you start the third Adventure deck:

Whenever you banish a bane, you remove it from the game

Whenever you banish a boon, you may remove it from the game

...where "remove it from the game" means don't put it back in the appropriate deck in the box. (I set them aside in one of the adventure deck boxes.) This will slowly remove the less powerful cards from the game, increasing the odds of getting more powerful boons (and facing harder monsters and barriers).

"Banish" is common enough. However, if after a scenario there are extra boons that cannot be added to a deck, they are "returned to the box", not "banished". Similarly, if there are cards left in locations after the villain is defeated, they are returned to the box, not banished.